Also note how on the bottom of page two of the report, they give a definition that the “gaikokujin” they’re referring to are not those here with PR status, the Zainichi, the US military, or “those with unclear Statuses of Residence” (what, refugees? certainly not visa overstayers). Okay. Pity the media doesn’t mention that. Nor is it mentioned that although this report is supposed to deal with “international crime”, it is just titled “Rainichi Gaikokujin Hanzai no Kenkyo Joukyou” (lit. The Situation of Cases of Crimes by Foreigners Coming to Japan). I guess just talking about garden-variety crime by NJ (back in the day when it was allegedly going up) isn’t convenient anymore. You have to narrow the focus to find the crime and shoot the fish in the proverbial barrel — it gets the headlines that attribute crime to nationality, even somehow allows you to doubt your own statistics. Moreover enables you to claim a budget to “establish a system in which investigators across the nation would be able to work in an integrated manner to counter crimes committed by foreigners” (as opposed to an integrated manner to counter crimes in general).

TOKYO — International criminal organizations are increasingly targeting Japan as members of such groups, the locations where they commit crimes and their victims have become more multinational, the National Police Agency said in its white paper released Friday.

While members of foreign crime groups have tended to stay in Japan for a short period of time to steal or engage in other criminal activities then flee overseas, such groups are now coordinating with crime syndicates in Japan and repeatedly committing crimes using existing ‘‘criminal infrastructure,’’ according to the annual paper.

In analyzing the globalization of crime, the document points to underground banks, groups specializing in arranging fake marriages and scrap yards in the suburbs as examples of such infrastructure.

Police inspected in June a total of more than 400 yards in Japan. One reason was to see whether they were being used as a base for global criminal activities. Some scrap yards were found to have been used to disassemble stolen cars and heavy machinery to export parts.

The number of foreigners rounded up last year on suspicion of being involved in criminal activities was about 13,200, down roughly 40% from 2004 when the number peaked.

‘‘The extent of how much crime has become globalized cannot be grasped through statistics,’’ the paper says, attributing part of the reason to difficulties in solving crimes committed by foreigners—which are more likely to be carried out by multiple culprits than those committed by Japanese.

To counter the trend, the agency set up in February an office specializing in collecting and analyzing intelligence on crimes committed by foreigners.

It aims to establish a system in which investigators across the nation would be able to work in an integrated manner to counter crimes committed by foreigners.

ENDS

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UPDATE

Foreign criminals building up Japanese operations, threatening public order: NPA

Globe-spanning foreign criminal organizations have secretly been building up their operations in Japan in recent years, according to a National Police Agency (NPA) white paper for fiscal 2010 submitted to the Cabinet on July 23.

According to a special “globalized crime” section of the report, the types of crimes perpetrated by foreigners in Japan are changing at the same time as criminal activity involving the movement of people money and the flow of information over borders is building — presenting what the agency emphasizes is “a threat to public order.”

The globalization of crime “could very well cause a tectonic shift in the public order of our nation,” the report declares. “From this point on, law enforcers are required to respond to the situation in an appropriate manner.”

Previously, crimes perpetrated by foreigners tended to be of the “hit and run” variety, committed during short-term stays in Japan and followed with the criminal fleeing the country. However, in recent years, cases of global foreign criminal organizations targeting Japan, and the formation of criminal groups in Japan made up of foreigners from many countries, have been conspicuous — a trend dubbed “the globalization of crime.”

As an example, the report cites a 2007 tear gas spray attack on a jewelry store clerk and theft of a 280 million yen tiara from the shop in Tokyo’s Ginza area by a Montenegrin group called the “Pink Panther” gang. It also details a 2006-2009 scam by a primarily Nigerian group that used fake credit cards to buy electronics from volume dealers, which they then sold to used electronics shops. Another example is a Pakistani, Cameroonian, Sri Lankan and Japanese group which stole heavy construction equipment in some 500 cases from 2002 to 2008, dismantled them and exported the parts.

There are also cases of foreigners involved in drug dealing, smuggling counterfeit goods, Internet-based computer hacking and money laundering, and some of them in connection with Japan’s own yakuza criminal organizations.

This year, the NPA is formulating a strategy to counter the globalized crime trend, and has set up a special “globalized crime countermeasures” unit. The agency is also strengthening cooperation and information exchanges with foreign public security agencies via diplomatic channels and Interpol. It is also building on extradition treaties for the smooth extradition of criminals.

It is incredible in 2010 to see how the East Asian Japanese and Korean societies maintain racialist systems underpinned by deep rooted xenophobia and offer every excuse under the sun to justify this dysfunctional modus operandi.

Both countries have benefited enormously from foreign technology (Japan zaibatsu/keiritsu given American technology post WW2, Korea riding technological wave borrowed from the west via Japan),foreign institutions which gave their citizens the benefits of alternatives to the old feudalism/ ruling families/caste systems, and other developments which have nothing to do with Japanese and Korean culture.

Yet the constant villifaction of non Japanese and non Koreans that is encouraged by all kinds of authorities and shamelessly promoted by the media in both countries really demonstrates how pathological are societies that owe their modern development and societal benefits to foreigners yet pursue such hateful agendas against them.

Japan has a severe problem with homegrown organised crime in the Yakuza groups, and it is incredibly difficult to do anything about the Yakuza when Japanese governing/business/law enforcement individuals and institutions have long been entangled with and compromised by organised crime. It is no coincidence therefore that authorities publicly focus on foreigners and how they supposedly represent the biggest threat to law and order as a means of avoiding such unpleasant facts.

Chinese and Korean criminal groups have been welcomed by the Yakuza in the past as a way of expanding their business interests to other countries. The Japanese politicians and law enforcement officials who cry crocodile tears about foreign organised crime were always looking the other way while their Yakuza buddies built up international crime links.

The smug assertions that you hear in Japan and Korea about how ‘honest’ Japanese and Koreans are as opposed to the polluting foreigners does not stand up to countless experiences to the contrary.

In most western countries phone scams are relatively few in number compared to the constant stream of scamming/threatening calls and texts by strangers to people (Japanese and foreign) who have cellphones in Japan and Korea. In both countries I usually received scam calls and texts on average 4 times a week – I have never received one in my home country.

Attempted extortion is much more common in both countries, as are human trafficking which is openly winked at by authorities in too many cases as Japanese and Korean organised crime reps are never far from politicans and law enforcement officals.

As their populations age and fall, both Japan and Korea pretend that the fertility drop is something that can be overlooked. After all, societies that are forever asserting publicly and through the education system that myths of ‘pure blood and one race’ are ‘true’ are not equipped to deal with the challenges of 21st century life.

Politicians and authorities who have no real policies for the future of both countries are projecting their and their societies’ shortcomings on to foreigners. Hence the jump in demanding ID from anybody who is foreign or supposedly ‘looks like it’ in Japan, and the insulting cartoons and posters that proudly fit into the category of hate literature.

Hence the abnormal Korean obsession with asserting that English teachers with no Korean blood have ‘many child molesters’ among them in the media. This is despite the fact that alleged molestation cases involving foreigners have been around 5 or so over the past 16 years, not one of them has been proven in a court of law, and the case of alleged molestation this year involves a Korean American.

Of course the witchunting of English teachers invited to Korea because supposedly Korea wants to ‘internationalise’ comes within the context of some horrendous crimes of molestation and physical assault committed over the past few years up to very recently by……………..Koreans.

Yet the Korean media constantly slanders foreign English teaches who have no Korean ethnicity and publicises Koreans and individuals and groups who would be shunned because of their membership of anti foreigner hate groups.

Ultimately Japan and Korea lose. All the villification and harassment of foreigners in both countries lose Japan and Korea respect, and do nothing to address the problems that the declining native population will cause economically and socially in the near future.

Educated foreigners who are familiar with Japanese/Korean culture are slandered instead of being seen as the human resources they can be for rapidly greying societies. Investors and potential investors are leaving Japan because they can see that a xenophobic society cripples itself and has no real innovative power.

The same goes for Korea despite all the spin there about supposedly being ‘international in focus’. I know more than a few business people who won’t bother with Korea as the constant slandering of English teachers and other foreigners in Korea does tell them basically what the people who want their money think of them.

Rich, tell us how you REALLY feel. Just kidding. I agree with everything you say except the broad generalization
that investors and potential-investors are leaving Japan because they can see that a xenophobic society cripples itself and has no real innovative power. I think investors are leaving because there’s no money in investing, or not as much as other places. They couldn’t care less about the xenophobia, if there’s a buck in it.

If this blog had a “like” system like Facebook does, I’d be sure to give Rich’s comment above a +1.

I can’t speak for Korea as I’ve never actually settled there, but as far as Japan is concerned, I think the stigma against NJs stems from some kind of misunderstood national pride. Maybe some Japanese want to keep their aura of ‘superiority’ and ‘uniqueness’ by constantly pointing out how people of other nationalities fail to live up to Japanese standards, hence the constant spotlight NJ crimes, purportrated lack of understanding and manners, and so on. Maybe they want to keep (or revive) the nationalist flame in the hearts of their citizens by comparing themselves with NJs and ‘winning’ every time.

It’s obvious in their double standards, really. Foreign parents whose children have been abducted to Japan aren’t given much consideration, but the case of Japanese abductees is still making waves decades after it happened. Foreign trainees who are, in some cases, abused and worked to near-death can “go home” if they don’t like it. And remember the victimization spin the media gave Toyota after their problems in US? Had the situation been reversed, I’m certain the Japanese media would’ve been quick to point out how J companies are better than NJ companies manufacturing the same products. The vibe I’m getting here goes like, “We are Japanese. We care about your own, and -only- about our own.”